Input devices such the keyboard and mouse are well known in the personal computer industry for providing text and command to the digital computer for generating multimedia work products. Although the industry initially marketed such input devices as discrete accessories, the advent of the internet and the requirement for multimedia information have prompted input device manufacturers to extend the capability of stand alone input devices to cater to the needs of authors of multimedia work products.
At the same time, the music industry evolved from a mainly analogue world to a digital one: music synthesizers and music composition programs contributed significantly to the origination of musical output from the music industry. The popularity and acceptance of internet no doubt hastens this process.
While the multimedia console of Singapore patent application no. 200001593-3 provided realistic simulation of musical key-bed instruments such as piano, organ or harpsichord; string instruments such as guitar or banjo were difficult to emulate.
It is an object of the present invention to incorporate string instrument input function into an unitary input device.
It is another object of the present invention to consolidate the text/command and a broad range of musical input functionality into an integrated keyboard for facilitating the origination of multimedia work product.
It is yet another object of the present invention to disable physically the musical input functionality while it is not required while providing ergonomic benefits to the user of the present invention.